


Canary

by brinnanza



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canon-Typical suicidal ideation, Gen, Helen Helps, MAG 152: A Gravedigger's Envy, sort of a passing reference to the post statement but no real spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-11
Updated: 2019-09-11
Packaged: 2020-10-14 20:55:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20607164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brinnanza/pseuds/brinnanza
Summary: There is a door in Jon’s office that is not supposed to be there.AKA: Helen comes bearing gifts.





	Canary

**Author's Note:**

> Helen + Jon interaction very good: the fic. passing reference to the post statement of 152 but no real spoilers. thanks to zeta for looking this over. I had hadestown on the brain, as usual, so the title is pulled from/referencing "hey little songbird" because it's Thematically Relevant

There is a door in Jon’s office that is not supposed to be there.

It’s pale yellow and weathered, sat behind a stack of bankers boxes full of old files. Jon’s head begins to ache as soon as his eyes land on it, and he lets out a heavy sigh, dropping the statement he’d just finished recording. It only made his hunger worse anyway, like an unsatisfying appetizer before a meal that will never come. 

The tape recorder on Jon’s desk dutifully whirs along as if it knows there will be something more to hear. As if it finds the pre-written statement just as empty and unfulfilling as Jon does, as if it hungers for something more substantial. As if it too longs to drag the words from an unwilling subject, to roll their trauma over his palate like a fine wine, to gorge himself on terror--

Jon closes his eyes and takes a slow, deep breath.

The door creaks open, ignoring the boxes piled in front of it, and Helen steps out. She is here and not-here, her footfalls clacking audibly but passing through whatever stands in her way as if the way is clear. “Hello, Archivist,” she says pleasantly. “I’ve brought you a gift.”

It is with no small amount of trepidation that Jon drags his eyes up to meet her spiraling pupils. “A gift,” he repeats.

She beams at him. The smile is slightly too wide for her face, and her teeth are very, very white. “Yes. Would you like it?”

“Probably not,” Jon says, though he is curious in spite of himself. Curiosity has always been his undoing, even long before he’d become a living nightmare that feeds on Knowing. “What is it?”

“It’s just through here,” Helen says, beckoning. Her smile widens at his skeptical expression. “I promise you’ll like it.”

Jon doubts this very highly, but he’s also getting up from his chair and approaching the door cautiously. He’s just so _hungry_, and even the faintest air of mystery lures him in like a dog that’s caught a scent. “And how do I know that this isn’t a trap?” he says. There’s no compulsion in it; he’s not sure he’d trust the distortion to tell the truth even when compelled to speak it, but he has to ask.

“Don’t you trust me by now?” Helen says. Jon gives her a flat look, and she laughs, the sound echoing around Jon’s office. “Just a little joke, Archivist. You have my word that no harm will come to you in my tunnels. I believe quite the opposite, in fact.”

That makes Jon more wary, somehow, not less, but it’s the closest to a guarantee he’s going to get from a creature that so delights in defying reality. “Fine,” he says.

Helen steps aside, and her door creaks open further, revealing a dimly lit corridor. She gestures him inside and then follows, the door closing behind her. It is, almost unquestionably, a terrible mistake on Jon’s part, yet another thing he will come to regret. 

It’s a very long list.

“This way, Archivist,” Helen says, and she leads him into the tunnels. He tries to keep track of the route, more out of habit than anything else. Knowing the path he’s come down won’t help him escape when the corridors are always changing and the door is never there, but it’s some small comfort, at least, to know. 

Finally, after long enough that Jon is beginning to question Helen’s use of the word “brought”, she leads him round a corner to reveal a figure wandering aimlessly down the corridor. He’s maybe late 50s, greying hair, dressed in what was probably once a very well-pressed suit but is now thoroughly rumpled. He hasn’t seemed to notice their presence yet, and Jon takes an involuntary step towards him.

He has a statement to give, and Jon is _starving_. 

He forces himself to step backwards, tearing his gaze from the man to glare at Helen. “What is this?” he demands, and Helen just smiles at him like an indulgent parent. “I’m not - I don’t want to hurt anyone. I’m - I’m - The written statements are…” He trails off, gaze snapping unerringly back to the man down the hall. Some vague and distant part of him wonders if this is what it was like for Daisy before, the electric crackle of anticipation under his skin, something tightly coiled and ready to pounce in his chest. “I can’t,” he says weakly.

“Would it help your conscience to know he’s committed a great number of heinous crimes?” Helen says. “He’ll tell you if you only ask.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Jon says, and he can taste the lie on his tongue. Even here, in the Spiral’s creation, the Eye watches him, presses against the door in his mind and leaks through bit by bit. Jon Knows without asking, sees this man’s violent murders. They are of his own making, free of the influence of the Hunt or the Slaughter. Jon Knows each plunge of the man’s knife, Knows the terrified expressions of his victims as the light fades from their eyes. He is monstrous in a way only humans can be, delighting in cruelty for cruelty’s sake.

_I am not like him_, Jon thinks, but he can taste a tinge of lie in that too.

“Why?” he says to Helen instead. “Why do this for me?”

“I told you,” Helen says patiently. “I want to help.”

“And how exactly is booting me off the wagon supposed to help?” He has been so hungry for so long, and some part of him knows that if he gives in now, he will not be able to stop himself again. He will be making a choice, and one there is no coming back from. 

Helen gives a disappointed, long-suffering sigh. “The Eye may not care to assuage your guilt, but there is something of Helen that does. A hunger that goes unsated will devour its host; you said so yourself.” She arches an eyebrow at him. “It’s rude to refuse a gift, you know.”

He should let the Eye destroy him, should let it consume him until there is nothing left. The others managed without him for six months; no doubt they will continue to do so. They do not need him. Maybe they never did. 

“I can’t,” Jon says helplessly, even as he steps forward again.

“Oh, Jon,” Helen says. She laughs, and the sound branches out and multiplies, bouncing down the corridors and off the walls in an echoing cacophony. Helen's victim - _Jon's _victim - does not seem to hear it. “It is your nature. Of course you will.”

And like the scorpion that stings its ferry, condemning them both to death, Jon does.

“Thank you,” he says to Helen after, when the ferocious hunger has had its fill. There will be guilt later, endless recriminations and more lies to cover them, but right now, there is only a warm contentment, the pleasant fullness of a large meal. Knowledge hums within him, and a hundred endlessly staring eyes blink in approval, sated.

Helen smiles at him. “I wouldn’t worry about plaguing his nightmares for long, Archivist,” she says.

“And why is that?”

Her smile widens, too many rows of needle-sharp teeth bared like a predator that stalks its prey, and she turns her gaze to the man shambling down the hallway away from them. “You are not the only one who hungers.”

Jon suppresses a shudder. He turns away, and the door is waiting just behind him, the light from his office filtering through the crack at the bottom. He reaches out, turns the handle, and then pauses to glance over his shoulder back at Helen. Some dim and distant part of him, whatever remains of the human he once was, wants to tell her this can't happen again, that he can’t afford to indulge, that he refuses to give in to the hunger.

Instead, he opens the door. He steps back into his office, sits down at his desk. The tape recorder clicks off, it too apparently sated.

It would only be another lie, anyway.


End file.
